Pleasantville now "Hawkeye"
Saturday, April 28 - 6:00 A.M.
On an early morning errand to Pleasantville I intercepted an eastbound on the BNSF Des Moines branch. The
train was led by four units, BNSF 4740, 945,
5305 and 4884, and the consist was a long string of BNSF grain hoppers.
Saturday, May 5 - 7:30 A.M.
I found a crew being delivered to a work extra
this morning. After hearing dispatcher "KRS" use the phrase "East Siding
Switch Hawkeye", I had a short conversation with the conductor and learned
that the Pleasantville siding has now been renamed by the railroad and is
called "Hawkeye". This is supposedly to reduce confusion between the
line's locations "Pleasantville" and "Pleasant Hill". The train, with
one unit, BNSF 2099, was a set of empty flat cars headed east to pick up work equipment
from a recent tie replacement project.
Wednesday, May 9 - 7:20 A.M
While out on another early mission, I heard a southbound train getting a
warrant on the UP Spine Line and then heard them on the Hartford detector
(MP 61.6), so I decided to intercept them at the grade crossing on S-31 northwest
of Beech. After a short wait, I could see the
train approaching. On the point was an interesting set of units,
UP 5104, TFM 2606, and
KCS 4614. The train itself was a unit grain load.